As I type this, the fourth release of Legionwood is busy being uploaded onto RMN's servers where with luck it will be available to download soon. With that said, if it isn't there when you try to download it, it most likely hasn't been approved yet, so try back in a few hours and it probably will be.

As Legionwood is my main project, I've invested quite a lot of time into it so far (bordering two years now) so it wasn't a very difficult decision in the long run to try and pinpoint people's major concerns with the previous versions of Legionwood and spend time addressing these things and reworking the game to a more likable state rather than simply pressing on with yet another chapter with those problems unfixed, so the main draw of this release is simply being able to see a refined, redone version of Legionwood rather than seeing new content.

In summary: This is the new Legionwood. The game you know is still in there, except now it's different. The bad parts nobody liked are gone, and the good parts have been made much, much better. This is Legionwood in its best form yet. Hopefully if you didn't like the game before, this version will prove to be much more appealing to you. I've worked very hard. Special thanks go to the folks of RMN and HB Games for helping me with this.

For those who were expecting new content however, don't despair! This version of Legionwood brings with it a bigger, expanded chapter three with about a full hour's worth of new story material and quests, plus these little additions as well:

- Rewritten dialogue from the start of chapter one to the end of chapter three. Cut scenes now flow more naturally, are not as boring as they once were and are somewhat shorter too.- New battle system! The battle system has been upgraded to a later, smoother running version of the Tankentai script, so you can expect new battle abilities based on Tankentai's unique animation capabilities. As well as this, you can expect semi-new battle backgrounds and every single enemy being rebalanced and tweaked to make for an easier but still challenging game.- Tweaked and rebalanced character stats and growth. Level ups have been made a lot weaker in terms of stat boosts so emphasis is now on the AP system to develop your character (as was originally intended) plus all characters now have roughly the same stat growth, meaning now you truly can create your own class as all restrictions that existed before, such as characters obviously being geared towards spellcasting etc, have been removed.- New, shorter game intro which is somehow as (if not more) informative storywise as the last one despite only being a tenth as long.

I've uploaded a small 2MB patch which will fix the following things in Legionwood 3.12:

- You can no longer get stuck landing your ship at Charn Port.- You can now complete Demonhold Keep.- Learning Dual Wielding no longer gives you wierd, rare weapons you shouldn't have.- Kills the bug that adds Thyrra to your party in Selatan Plains...

This patch is essential if you wish to complete the game. I have submitted it to RMN so expect it to be available within twelve hours. It is very easy to apply and fixes all of this version's problems.

You will need to manually do it but it's an easy job and many players have reached the end after using the patch so once it is applied, the game is ready to go and playable from start to finish, with all side quests accessible.

I have not forgotten Legionwood! I'm currently well into the production of the final release of the game and I'm also doing some minor adjustments to the balancing of earlier parts of the game. The final release will have a game play time clocking in at around 15 hours or so and will include the final dungeon and boss, wrap up the story and its loose ends and will feature the super deadly optional boss which all J-RPG games seem to include as standard.

I'm about 30% through the development of this section right now. This means I've completed about 2 hours of the new content so far. As this is the biggest update and the final release thus far you can expect it to take a bit longer to develop than previous updates, particularly the chapter 3 release. Never fear though; the game is still chugging along!

Legionwood just hit 85% completion! I've just finished adding the final touches to the last town in the game (Makir) which has the final equipment and Tech stores. Now there are just three dungeons to be done along with the ending until the game is finished! Hold your breath!

The final release of Legionwood is taking a bit longer than I previously thought, due to unforseen injections of schoolwork and the fact that currently I am not happy about how the earlier parts of the game compare to the new content; my latest playtest of the game has made me notice a lot of things that I want to fix. Thus, I'm taking the time now (even though the game is finished) to go back and rework the parts of the game I am currently unhappy with.

This is a major update on what I've done with Legionwood so far:

First of all, I addressed the start of the game and made a lot of the battles easier and more accessible. There are now more in depth tutorials on the AP system and how to use it effectively and enemies show a smoother difficulty curve; the easier parts of the late game have been altered to be harder while unusually hard parts of the game such as the Blackrock Cavern have been made easier. In my latest play test of the game, I passed Selatan Plains without much trouble at Level 2. Meanwhile, I cleared Blackrock Cavern only having one character KO'd at level 14. The problem with adjusting the balance of Legionwood however is that I cannot account for a player's AP setting; some settings will make the game easier, others harder.

Next on the agenda, the glitches. You'll be glad to know these have *all* been fixed, including the bug which made encounters turn off if you revisited Charn Castle in Chapter Three. I spent a lot of time reprogramming some areas and systems to fix these errors. I can't account for the yet to be released Chapter Four though; I have yet to playtest it.

Finally, the most glaringly obvious turn off about Legionwood is one that I am working very hard to fix; the writing. This problem comes from the game's long development time. I was a very different writer two years ago than I am now and I never went back to rewrite the old scenes. In my current playthrough I've been carefully examining each cutscene and scrutinising it by my current writing standards. Without sounding too arogant, I want to say that I think the writing in Chapter Four is excellent and the very best in the game. I'm currently rewriting the script and changing some key scenes such as Martyn's conversation in Hawkshire to seem more natural; it seems wierd that everyone simply accepted that Ark is an ancient god who created the universe so easily. A similar event occurs in Chapter Four for two other characters and I handled it a lot better, so the main reason the final version is taking so long to make is because I am rewriting nearly every scene - fixing spelling/grammatical errors, changing corny or badly written lines, removing instances of over exposition or repetition and adding more lines to certain scenes that are handled clumsily. This said though, Legionwood is not meant to be Shakespeare, it's meant to be a basic easily accessible, casual, cliched, bread and butter fantasy story - the writing's meant to be simple in some places and over the top in others.

Hey everyone... I haven't updated this thread for a while so for those who are interested...

Update

A fan known to me as "kken" has decided to design a complete range of hand drawn art pieces for use in Legionwood. They are of a great quality and he has requested that the game's release be delayed until all of the pieces have been finished so that they can be placed in the game for use in cut scenes and as backgrounds. Scenes such as the conversations between Lann and Alexis on the ship and the conversation in the Royal Tomb (as well as some scenes in the final chapter including the ending) use these art pieces and the game cannot be released until they are all completed.

Thanks for eagerly awaiting Legionwood! I promise you the full game will be worth the wait!

Thought I might show off an example of kken's artwork. This is used in the conversation after the death of Merces in chapter 3.

09/23/2010 06:14 AMYep, I have found and fixed the Tech Store error! Do not download the current download! Wait until later today, a new download "Legionwood: Full Version (Build 4.1b)" will be up with fixed Tech stores. Sorry about that! I swear they were working when I tried yesterday.

Tsk tsk... I don't think I've felt confidence either time I tried playing this game, and I was hoping to give it a try now that you have some new artwork, but again I'm left feeling like you are an independent game developer.

It's either bugs, or a better version is around the corner.

The game could be awesome now, but I'm going to wait a while to make sure it really is done being tested. With how much you hype your shit, I should have had no choice but to be playing this. The fact that your hype got me to the game's thread means you're doing that well, unfortunately, that thread is where you're apologizing for inadequate testing. Letdown!

Well sorry Fei! It wasn't actually a fault of my own though - a malfunction in RPG Maker VX while compressing the game caused the script to malfunction and I had no way of knowing it was so until it was live on the internet.

I have fixed it now, and to be sure I've test played the entire thing again. It works fine! However, my artist, kken, requested that her name be changed in the credits so I had to re-upload anyway, regardless of whether the game works or not.

I apologise for wasting your time; the fixed version of the game (which works fine and will be the final, completed version) should be up within 24 hours. I do hope you'll try it!

Finally, what hype? I don't feel I hyped this game at all! All I did was describe its features and story, as is par the course for a game presentation thread.

Generally as a rule of thumb with my games... If you wait about a week or two after the release, you can bet the fully completed, bug free version is out. I use that time to get people to find bugs I may have missed, make a few final adjustments etc